Open Mike: Prayer of Gratitude

"Sight is the soul's perfect delight."

—Unknown

I know what you're thinking—where does an avowed agnostic get off claiming to offer a prayer?

But hey, I'm not doctrinaire. I never assume I have to be right. Aristotle wasn't right about everything. Einstein wasn't either. Newton spent the back half of his life as an alchemist, for pete's sake. The guy who invented the ultra-logical empiricist Sherlock Holmes—the ur-Spock—believed passionately in fairies. (No kidding.) So who am I? I pray. I am reverent. (I even go to church. I like church. They welcome agnostics—I always ask.)

But I digress.

I was coming home the other night when a fast-moving thunderhead passed by. Its passing revealed the setting sun, which lit up the receding mountain of clouds with brilliant yellow-orange light even as it painted the western horizon pink. I was looking at both sides of the sky sitting at a long stoplight at the crest of a gentle rise. I wish I could have stayed there longer. The cars behind me might have objected.

A few nights later it rained, and as I was walking the dog I came across the crest of a hill. It was late dusk, almost twilight. The trees and streets were wet and the air had that earthy smell of fresh rain, but the sky had cleared. The hill was so steep that the streetlight at the bottom of it was almost at my eye level. It spilled a pool of yellow light on the leaves of a tree, a sprinkle of yellow and green amidst the blue gloom. Far behind me, I heard a train horn from a distant crossing.

A few days after that, a cold front moved in, and the sky turned into a theater of the what must have been the most varied and dramatic clouds I've ever seen. Huge, hard-edged cumulus clouds; stormclouds heavy with rain; crepuscular rays from the sun. The wind moving everything around and rearranging the sets constantly. I drove around just looking at the skies. It was an atmospheric supergala. Driving home later, the western horizon was a band of roiled gold underneath a solid wall of dark purple.

This has just been the most beautiful, dramatic spring and summer I've ever experienced in Wisconsin. It hasn't been "beautiful" by the standards of people who just like hot weather, and who don't mind even if it doesn't rain. It's been relatively wet and relatively cold. But it's been visually just gorgeous.

Time and again this summer I've just been struck by the realization that we live in a beautiful world. And when the earth is beautiful, it's heaven.

And I'm grateful. I'm full of gratitude to be here, seeing, and for this lovely season.

Mike

"Open Mike," the editorial page of TOP—frequently off-topic—appears on Sundays, at least when yr. hmbl. proprietor is so moved.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Moose: "'If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice.' —Meister Eckhart."

Luis C. Aribe: "Die Welt ist schön. (Pardon my German.)"

Mike replies: The title of a very famous photography book....

John Krumm: "Ah, you've experienced the pleasure of a colder, more blustery and varied summer, something we are very familiar with in Southeast Alaska (except this summer, for us, which was blissfully and unusually clear and warm, a trade perhaps between the North and South). One of the gifts of practicing photography is an intense appreciation of natural light and form, something I enjoy even without a camera, and your words describe it well."

Comments

[LJ Slater]

Some of us find joy in ugliness.

[blackmagic]

So, Mike, you've reached enlightenment? :-)
Thanks for reminding us that. We tend to forget.

[Tony McLean]

Mike: Wow! Now that's what I call perfect prose and so descriptive too. I almost feel as though I was riding shotgun in your truck. Now all I crave is a picture or two complete the imagery!

Tony Mclean (UK)

[Patrick Dodds]

Well now, that was nice. Thank you Mike. Glad the world is treating you to moments of beauty every now and again.

[jim]

"Hey Babe,
Don't the air taste sweet?"
Marc Cohn

[Jim Bullard]

"I've just been struck by the realization that we live in a beautiful world."

Indeed we do Mike and that is the core of my photography. I know other photographers photograph what's wrong to raise awareness but it is my belief that many in the world are just as unaware of the beauty, just as much in need of the realization you expressed. Further, I believe that the realization that it is a beautiful world is more important than focus on poverty, disease and the degradation of our planet because it is the realization of the world's inherent beauty that gives us the courage and hope to work toward work toward a better world rather than giving up in despair.

[David Paterson]

Michael -

We whose work and subject matter you recently dismissed as "naturey", have always known this; it's why we do what we do.

Islamic terrorism, bent politicians, bank crashes, greedy corporations - whatever - the physical world is still and always, beautiful, and we photograph it to celebrate that fact and to put the evidence in front of as many people as we can.

[jean-louis salvignol]

Agnostic, Mike? Not so sure. Pantheistic it seems.

Read this - if you want of course:

Winter Journey in the Harz (1777)

As the hawk aloft
On heavy daybreak cloud
Searching for prey,
May my song hover.

For a god has
duly to each
His path prefixed,
And the fortunate man
Runs fast and joyfully
To his journey's end;
But he whose heart
Misfortune constricted
Struggles in vain
To break from the bonds
Of the brazen thread
Which the shears, so bitter still,
Cut once alone.

Into grisly thickets
The rough beasts run,
And with the sparrows
The rich long since have
Sunk in their swamps.

Easy it is to follow that car
Which Fortune steers,
Like the leisurely troop that rides
The find highroads
Behind the array of the Prince.

But who is it stands aloof?
His path is lost in the brake,
Behind hime the shrubs
Close and he's gone,
Grass grows straight again,
The emptiness swallows him.

O who shall heal his agony then
In whom each balm turned poison,
Who drank hatred of man
From the very fullness of love?
First held now holding in contempt,
In secret he consumes
His own particular good
In selfhood unsated.

If in your book of songs
Father of love, there sounds
One note his ear can hear,
Refresh with it then his heart!
Open his clouded gaze
To the thousand fountainheads
About him as he thirsts
In the desert!

You who give joys that are manifold,
To each his overflowing share,
Bless the companions that hunt
On the spoor of the beasts
With young exuberance
Of glad desire to kill,
Tardy averngers of outrage
For so long repelled in vain
By the cudgeling countryman.

But hide the solitary man
In your sheer gold cloud!
Till roses flower again
Surround with winter-green
The moistened hair,
O love, of your poet!

With your lantern glowing
You light his way
Over the fords by night,
On impassable tracks
Through the void countryside;
With daybreak thousand-hued
Into his heart you laugh;
With the mordant storm
You bear him aloft;
Winter streams plunge from the crag
Into his songs,
And his altar of sweetest thanks

Is the snow-hung brow
Of the terrible peak
People in their imaginings crowned
With spirit dances.

You stand with heart unplumbed
Mysteriously revealed
Above the marveling world
And you look from clouds
On the kingdoms and magnificence
Which from your brothers' veins beside you
With streams you water.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Selected Poems, Christopher Middleton (Ed.)
"Harzreise im Winter" (A Winter Journey in the Harz")
translated by Christopher Middleton,
Suhrkamp/Insel Publishers, Boston, 1983, pp. 66-71

[Thank you for that, Jean-Louis. However, I assure you, I am not a pantheist [s]. --Mike]

[Alun J. Carr]

I don't dispute that there are many scenes of beauty, but it's hardly a beautiful world. See Devo's 'Beautiful World':

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ymzd_devo-beautiful-world_music?search_algo=2

Think of Syria, Somalia, the cannibalism in North Korea, the repression by the West's 'allies' in the Arab states.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but the world as a whole is awful, although there is much that is beautiful.

Alun

[MM]

Gratitude is good. Very good. In fact, I think that the single biggest determinant of a person's level of happiness--regardless of their age or circumstances--is how grateful they are. So thanks for this post....

[Michael T.]

And to those in the northern hemisphere Happy Fall; and those in the southern hemisphere Happy Spring! And to those folks who live along the equator, well, I am sorry you don't get four seasons; but knowing that each day will bring almost equal day and equal night must have some advantage!

[Walter Glover]

How uplifting, also, to see a reference of sorts to dear old, oft over-looked, Albert Renger-Patzsch. Gotta love him!!

Walter

[Speed]

When inside, my world is small and the other one comes to me through a wire.

When outside, there is only one world and it is big and it is diverse and wide ranging and it is beautiful. And it is mine.

I'm going to walk the dog now.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Our planet, and certainly the universe, must be brimming with perceptual "beauty". Be grateful that, deep in middle-age, your cognitive senses and psyche can still recognize it. Lots of people your age live in a sad world of continuous gray.

[Mike R]

Hey, Mike,
Being agnostic does not preclude being spiritual, and your beautiful description reflects that innate spirituality.

My wife and I have repeatedly marveled at the lush summer we have just experienced in SE PA. I cannot recall such a year in my 70+ years. We celebrated summer's end and autumn's birth this evening with a (small) bonfire.

Ignore the naysayers, revel in the glories this world can offer.

(Me? Agnostic pantheist)

[Rob L.]

I may not know whom to address the envelope to, but the last few days have me composing a thank you letter to _someone_. I finally got a chance to hang out in glorious weather with my family, found a creepy-crazy bug with my son, taught a roomful of Tiger Cubs and danced with my daughter in tall meadow grass. (even took pictures!)

There are horrible things on this earth, but the fact that nature's default setting is 'gorgeous' has got to meant something, right?

[joanlvh]

do you take a camera with you most of the time?

[Hi joanlvh, not on walks with the dog--she stops at all the wrong places. And my readers don't let me take pictures from the car any more. --Mike]

[Robert Roaldi]

Weather is good.

[Dave in NM]

"This has just been the most beautiful, dramatic spring and summer I've ever experienced in Wisconsin."

I wonder how much of that experience of beauty is related to our ability to receive it. I'd submit that the beauty is always there - the gift is our ability to recognize it. Definitely something to thankful for.

[Bryce Lee]

And Mike, during these moments of revalation;
where was your your capture the image at the
time of the moment device?

I know, i know, always never there in hand to record; been there, missed the opportunity and then figured, there shall be other times, other seasons, other worlds and yes other walks with Lulu.

[Jayson Merryfield]

Why am I the first to say "Pics or it didn't happen"?

;)

[Antoine]

But hey, Mike, where are the photos ?!

[Tim]

Amen to that.

[01af]

> And when the earth is beautiful, it's heaven.

To someone from Jupiter, it would be hell.

[Bruno Masset]

Le Monde est une chienlit. (Pardon my French.)

[John]

This reminds me of a morning a dozen years ago. I was chairing an information systems seminar in North Florida, and staying in hotel on the beach.

I got up just before dawn and went for a long walk on the beach to watch the sun come up. The wind was blowing, and the only things to be heard were the surf, the sea birds, and the sound of my feet walking on the sand.

The beauty of the sky and sea was nearly overwhelming; I felt as I was walking in a vast cathedral of beauty. My atheism was shaken to its core - how could such vast majesty have happened by chance?

After my long walk, I welcomed other attendees to the first session with a renewed sense of the world, which lasted until later that morning of September 11th, 2001.

http://imgur.com/HxU1hgN
http://imgur.com/Vv9bVpQ

Forgive the quality of the pictures - they were shot with my first ever digital camera, an Olympus DL360 1.3 mb P&S.

Jack Hufnagel

[MartinP]

Regarding Aluns comment, far above somewhere... You are talking about actions by humans, not about the physical World. Not the same thing.
;o)

[joanlvh]

"And my readers don't let me take pictures from the car any more. --Mike"
now I am curious, how do we readers stop you, fyi, i take pics from my car all the time.

[Well, I posted a picture in the "My Pool Lesson with Jerry Briesath" post--taken from the MOVING car--that many readers excoriated me for, feeling it was an unsafe practice. Which it probably is. I then wrote this followup:

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2013/07/photographing-while-driving.html

But I learned my lesson...never ADMIT to taking pictures from a moving car! --Mike]

[Thomas]

Thanks for reminding me I shouldn't spend so much time stuck in an office.

[Earl Dunbar]

Whether one prays or not, the essential teaching is gratitude. Gratitude is essential to being fully alive.

[Bruno Masset]

Mike Johnston wrote:
> But I learned my lesson...never ADMIT to taking pictures from a moving car!

Now that it's clear that we live in an insecure, surveillance society where e.g. various governmental agencies can trawl for information and get you on a legal technicality, here are the rules:

Rule one: Do not speak.

Rule two: If you can't abide by rule one, then don't write.

Rule three: If you can't abide by rule two, then don't be surprised.